Everything Changes
by Dominus Umbra
Summary: Oneshot. Insubordination leads to so much more...


**Those of you who have read _Touched_ will probably recognise this plotline. I changed the style, made it longer, and made the ending less ambiguous ('coz I'm a sucker for a happy ending).**

**Di/Nikki, I own nothing, blah blah. (If I did, I wouldn't have axed half the cast. Worse. Idea. Ever.)  
**

* * *

Nikki sighed and rubbed a hand across her brow. It was days like this that made her wish she'd stayed a hairdresser. Days that involved two separate armed incidents, a roasting from the inspector for lack of supervision, and a subordinate with a propensity for reckless behaviour. But no, she wasn't a hairdresser anymore, she was a police sergeant, and in front of her stood a PC who was lucky to be alive.

"You could've died, Diane! He could've killed you!" Nikki was surprised by the constable's apparent lack of awareness of that fact.

"Sarge, I'm fine, honestly. It was just a scratch." The PC sounded almost believable when she said it like that, given away only by the ever-so-slight tremor in her voice.

"If that knife had gone and inch or two to the left you would've bled to death!"

"But it didn't, and I'm fine."

"And you think that's all that matters?" Nikki stood and moved around her desk to stand in front of Diane, barely resisting the urge to shake her. "You tackled a man who was waving a knife at you. You can't take risks like that."

"Are you going to tell Nate the same thing? He was there too, you know."

"Nate didn't get himself stabbed!"

They were standing so close now, their bodies separated by mere inches of air. Neither of them noticed, though. They were too caught up in the anger, the passion. Blazing green eyes met steely blue ones defiantly. Diane opened her mouth, maybe to snap an angry reply, maybe to back down. Neither of them ever found out, because nothing was said.

Even months later, neither of them could've told you who initiated the kiss that first time in Nikki's office. All they could tell you was that that moment, when anger became lust, changed everything.

After a time, which could've been a second or a lifetime, Diane pulled away.

"Sarge, I..." she met Nikki's eye briefly, then turned and fled, leaving Nikki leaning against her desk wondering what had just happened.

The change was immediate. Nikki found when she went home that night – still bemused by what had happened that day – that her house, once warm and comforting, was now stifling. The concern of her husband, once reassuring and supportive, now felt oppressive and controlling. Thoughts of what had occurred in her office that afternoon plagued her, despite her best efforts to forget it. She tried telling herself she hadn't enjoyed it; that it was just a power play on Diane's part, but even in her own head that sounded feeble. For in that brief moment, the guilt she'd carried since that day in the warehouse had gone away, and Diane's expression before she'd run had told her it was no ploy. After a few hours of concern from Doug, thoughts she didn't want to face flying wildly around her brain, Nikki found she could take it no longer. She had to get out.

Making her excuses to her family, fabricating a story about the inspector wanting her back at Sun Hill, Nikki fled the house in favour of driving around the city aimlessly, trying to clear her head. But no matter how hard she tried, clarity would not come. Diane, the taste of her lips as they pressed against Nikki's own, the sensation of her hand running through her hair, that wonderful, exhilarating rush of emotion that had drowned the guilt; these thoughts flew around inside her mind, chased by thoughts of her family: her husband who loved her and her children who needed her.

With her head so full of turmoil, Nikki paid little attention to where she was or where she was going. Which is why she was surprised to find that her body had led her to Diane's flat while her mind had been at war with itself. Her traitorous body, which was apparently still in control because she found herself getting out of her car and approaching the front door, catching it before it closed behind another resident. Part of her mind, the part that held images of Doug and the children, protested fervently against this while the other part, the part that remembered the feeling of Diane's body against her own, pushing her against the desk, drove her forward. Again, her body acted without her mind's involvement as she reached Diane's door. Her hand went up to knock and the part of her that knew this was wrong screamed.

That scream faded into insignificance when the woman who plagued her mind opened the door. The other, selfish part of her roared in triumph, and the last traces of resistance faded. She was lost, and there was no going back.

"Nikki?"

"I think...I need you." was her reply, and Diane stood aside to let her in. Nikki moved past her into the hallway then stopped. "Di...I don't...I'm not..." she turned, and found Diane close behind her, her green eyes filled with emotions Nikki didn't want to begin to decipher. But she didn't have to, for the moment their eyes met, Diane had pressed her lips to Nikki's, and the sergeant responded passionately. The constable guided her down the hall and Nikki found herself being pushed gently down onto the bed.

"Nikki? Are you sure about this?" Diane pulled back briefly to look at the woman under her.

"No." She recaptured the constable's lips with her own, moaning into her mouth as a hand slipped down her body. As Diane's lips left hers and found her neck, Nikki managed just two coherent words. "Don't stop."

***

After she left Diane's flat, Nikki just sat in her car. The part of her that housed her morality, the part that had been suppressed by Diane's presence, returned and forced her to face the reality of what she'd just done. It whispered words like 'adultery' and 'betrayal' to her over and over. Upon returning home, she found she couldn't meet Doug's eye. Claiming exhaustion, she fled to their bedroom and feigned sleep when he joined her. But she couldn't sleep. She tried to pretend it hadn't happened, but it didn't work. The memory of Diane nuzzling into her neck; sliding her hands up her body to remove her shirt, trailing kisses along the exposed flesh; they were far too real to be pushed away. Failing that, she tried to persuade herself it wouldn't happen again. That was marginally more successful. Even if, deep down, she knew she would never be able to stay away, she told herself that she would resist any adulterous urges she felt. By the time the sun came up, she had herself half-convinced.

***

Nikki's self-deception lasted half a day. It was such a little thing that shattered her resolve: a tiny smile as they passed in the corridor. It wasn't even really a smile, more a slight upward twitch in the corner of the other woman's mouth. But it was enough to make her turn, to call after her.

"PC Noble, can I see you in my office, please?"

Nikki closed the door behind Diane, then moved to sit behind her desk. That didn't last long; she found it impossible to sit still so stood up again, instead walking in restless bursts around the office. Diane hadn't moved from her position by the door.

"Look, about last night..." the blond sergeant eventually began, but Diane cut her off.

"Sarge, its fine. I get it."

"No, it's not. 'Coz I don't know what I'm doing. But I do know what I want. I want you. Last night...Last night was the most I've felt since Doug got stabbed and Billy....I know I'm not being fair, 'coz I know I'll never leave Doug, but...God Di, you make me feel, and—"

She was cut off as Diane grabbed her arm, pulled her out of sight of the window and kissed her. After a moment, the constable broke away and looked into her eyes. "Come home with me?"

Nikki nodded mutely.

* * *

Almost two months later, Nikki lay in a bed that was not her own, wondering how this had become so habitual. Diane lay next to her with one of her arms resting on Nikki's abdomen, a finger tracing patterns on her stomach, not talking; just watching her. It was comforting, which bothered Nikki. She didn't come here for comfort, she came because Diane made the guilt go away, a subtle but important distinction in Nikki's mind. It was also fairly ironic, as being with the constable also added to her growing sense of remorse, but the reprieve offered, however brief, was simply too tempting to be refused. True, she was now doing a whole lot more justifying, to herself as well as her husband; but then, some people believed that life is really just a whole series of impulsive actions followed by justification.

What she couldn't justify to herself, however, was why it was becoming harder and harder for her to leave Diane's flat. That was why she was still there now, usually she'd've been long gone. She didn't want to leave. She tried to put it down to not wanting the guilt to come back, but she knew that wasn't the whole reason. She preferred being with the constable to being with her family, and she hated herself for it. She knew why she felt that way, of course. With her family, everyone wanted something from her. Doug wanted her to be a wife; her kids wanted her to be a mother. Hell, even at work, her colleagues wanted her to be a sergeant. Not Diane, she just wanted her to be her.

But again, that was only part of the reason she found it hard to tear herself away from the constable's embrace. She'd worked it out the week before, in a drunken stupor, after Diane had dragged her home from a bar in which Nikki was doing her best to drink herself into a kind of numb forgetfulness. But she'd stored her discovery in a deep corner of her mind, unwilling to acknowledge it in the hope that it would go away. But that masochistic part of her, the part that made her face up to things she'd rather avoid, was determinedly dragging it higher and higher in her conscience until it could be ignored no longer.

Nikki's musings were cut off by the shrill ringing of her mobile, something the sergeant was grateful for; her mind had been dangerously close to a place she wasn't ready to go. She sat up, picking up the phone from the bedside table and checking the caller ID.

"It's Doug." She swung her legs off the bed so she was sitting on the edge. She felt Diane sit up behind her.

"What are you gunna say?" she asked, brushing her fingers lightly down Nikki's spine.

"I'm not sure."

She answered the phone. Doug's voice rattled through the speaker, loud in her ear after the long silence.

"Nikki, where are you? I was expecting you home hours ago." The concern in his voice would have made her feel good before, made her feel loved. But that was before that day in her office. That day that changed everything. Now it just felt invasive.

Nikki made up her mind, in that moment. "Yeah, sorry, the inspector asked me to pull a double to cover for Smithy, he called in sick." She lied. The deception didn't even faze her anymore, especially when she felt Diane's lips brush along her shoulder and up to her neck.

"Well, you could've called." He sounded hurt.

"Sorry, I meant to. Time got away from me, I guessss..." She hoped he didn't notice the way she hissed the last part; Diane had wrapped her arms around the sergeant's waist and was running one hand across her abdomen and the other up and down her thigh. That, in combination with the kisses she was dropping on her neck, was making it increasingly difficult for Nikki to control her voice.

"So you're not coming home tonight, then?"

"Probably not. So I'll see you tomorrow, yeah? 'Night." Nikki was trying not to moan now; she was surprised he couldn't hear it. Maybe he was just putting her tone down to fatigue, or stress.

"Okay. 'Night love." She'd hung up almost before he'd finished talking, letting out the moan she'd been suppressing, and allowing the phone to slip out of her hand as she turned to pin Diane to the bed.

***

That night changed things. After that night, it would take a phone call from Doug or one of the kids to get her out Diane's flat. After that night, her lies to her husband became less carefully constructed. Because after that night, the first night she'd not gone home at all, she'd been forced to admit to herself that it had gone beyond purely physical; beyond a cathartic release; beyond an escape from the guilt. After that night, that little voice of realism in her head forced her to admit that she was in love with Diane Noble. She didn't share her realisation with the constable, for to do so would be to open herself up to rejection, and Nikki didn't think she could cope with that. So instead she just continued as she had been, using Diane as a buffer against the remorse, resolutely ignoring that annoying voice in her head that was whispering that something had to give.

* * *

Up until the inspector opened the door of the sergeant's office, Nikki had been having a good day. She'd slept at home last night and Doug had been sleeping off a lad's night out when Nikki left for work, saving her from having to look him in the eye, both of which lessened her usual morning guilt trip. Then Gold burst into her office and ruined her day with ten words.

"There's a gunman on the high street. He's taken hostages."

The high street. Diane had been patrolling the high street that day. Trying to calm herself, ignoring that voice in her head that had started crooning '_something's giving_', she asked "Any of our lot, Ma'am?"

"Yes, PCs Noble and Keane, along with four other bystanders."

Nikki felt herself go numb. She followed Gina to the car, trying desperately to control – or at least hide – her emotions. She told herself over and over again that she'd be fine, they'd both be fine, that everything would be okay.

But of course, things rarely went the way Nikki wanted them to. She'd learnt that a while ago. She spotted Emma first, as they were pulling up. The young PC was sitting in the back of an ambulance, pale and shaking, staring at a figure on the ground. Nikki followed her gaze, then opened the door and flew from the car before it had stopped moving. It was Diane, surrounded by paramedics, her white shirt stained red with blood. Nikki felt her body grow hot then cold before settling on numb. Ignoring Gold's call, Nikki ran to her side and took her hand. Green eyes found blue ones, and a pained smile flickered across her face.

"Nikki...."

The sergeant felt as if her heart had stopped. Everything stopped. The wail of the sirens, the screaming of the crowd. Even that insidious voice in her head fell silent. The paramedics didn't question her when she climbed into the ambulance, completely ignoring the inspector's orders, just as she hadn't questioned the urge that made her do it. The inspector didn't question her hours later when she arrived at the hospital, just looked on with an expression of realisation when she found the sergeant next to Diane's bed, holding her hand and talking quietly to her unconscious form. Her husband broke that pattern when he arrived with the kids in tow, demanding answers, but she ignored him, instead focusing on the steady rise and fall of the constable's chest, the high-pitched beeping of the heart monitor, which would have been annoying if it hadn't symbolised her lover's continued presence in the land of the living.

And when an increase in the speed of that un-annoying beep signalled her return to consciousness, Nikki felt as if she could breathe again. And when those beautiful green eyes opened, she felt her heart resume its normal rhythm in her chest, for it had surely stopped until then. And when she ignored her husband's presence, and leant over to kiss the woman lying in bed, she felt the something give. And when the inspector found her lying on the bed with her arms wrapped around Diane, whispering that she loved her over and over, she found she no longer cared.

* * *

**I have reviews for xmas?**


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